Top Ten Things a New X1 User Should Know

Do you have a question?

Your approach is perhaps a little vague. As far as I can tell the experience varies from person to person. Gear varies too. Your question is an open ended question with no answer.

If you have a specific question we will help but you are asking us to read you the manual. It may not sound that way to you but it does to us. 

So you don't think its a difficult program to figure out I had very little trouble transitioning from 8.5 to X1.

Ten is a lot!  But I will try..  In no order of importance though, kind of a brainstorm on the OP...

10..  Try as fast as possible to get the hang of audio snap, the more you linger on that, the harder it will get.

9..  Learn those preferences, track templates, project templates and fx chains

8..  undock everything, spread your windows out, redock them, get a feel for the workspace, and learn how to use screensets

7..  depending on your version, go one by one through all the tools that Cakewalk Provide..  "The P64 Per Strip, the LP Multiband, the old Sonitus and Cakewalk DX tools, the midi effect..."  Learn how to set up your browser structure file..  I forget what its called, but you can set your browser up, so your folders appear in your way.

6.  Read the Cakewalk blog, look specifically for a post on Parallel Compression...  Practice that, it will help you learn the routing quickly...

5.  I thought the Craig Anderton Vids, and the Sonar Power book very cool!  The Craig Anderton vids are not for newbies to production..  if you are a production newbie, perhaps best to go with the groove 3 stuff.

4. pay close attention to the types of tracks, and types of clips.  you have simple instrument tracks, audio, and midi..  you have audio and midi clips..  you can insert fx directly onto clips.

3.  get the hang of freezing synths, bouncing clips, bouncing tracks..  watch your levels as you do it.

2. you might have some crashes in your first month or two..  it could be the program has a random bug here or there, but you will innately learn how to avoid crashes.. a truth with all daws imo...

1....  pay very close attention to the Pro Channel.  Sonar is a Daw.. ok..  great.   Sonar is also a way to design and shape the sound of an entire production...  it may appear very deep, and it is deeper than it appears

Chappel

what are the problems you had?

1. Pro Channel randomly becomes unresponsive. The modules are enabled, global on/off is on, you can turn the knobs on the modules, but there is no change to the effect.

2. Pro Channel randomly turns itself on with no interaction from the end user. It won't do it while you are sitting there looking at it, but it does it when you click on a track, go to another, then come back to the original track.

3. Knobs on some Pro Channel modules randomly reverse and you have to reboot to fix it. For example, a gain knob would be on the left, saturation knob on the right normally, when the problem occurs, the gain knob is on the right, sat knob on the left.

4. When drawing envelopes with the freehand tool, sometimes the nodes don't draw correctly.

5. You can't Fast Bounce when using time based effects since the D patch.

There's a lot more, but these are the ones that I run in to almost every time I use X1.

If you just got it and you run in to any of these problems, you will not see a fix for it. There will be no further bug fixes for X1. But I think if you just got it, you get a free copy of X2, so that's some good news.

 What are the most commonly answered questions? Help me out here, I just got the darned thing.

There's a lot ... mainly the questions asked are related to the restructuring of the workflow in X1 compared to previous versions of Sonar.

In all fairness ... the Pro Channel problems don't seem to effect all systems. There's no rhyme or reason to which system it will effect. I've seen it reported here that it happens on new i7's ... on old dual cores, and then see someone else with the same specs report that it's working fine for them.

1. Input levels are set via your interface, not via the Sonar faders/trim
2. Only use freeze/bounce if your computer is struggling to keep up
3. If you have to freeze/bounce, freeze the SYNTH
4. Buy & Read Scott Garrigus's Sonar POWER! book
5. Learn to mix with the plugs that come with Sonar - don't download every free vst you come across
6. Learn how to create/edit/delete Drum Maps. They are extremely useful (and not just for drums!)
7. Learn all the functions of the Smart Tool inside out
8. Never be afraid to ask questions on here!
9. When using a microphone to record, put your head where the mic is. THIS is the sound you'll be recording - if you don't like it - move the mic. (I'm thinking guitars here)
10. Learn the difference between track outputs & sends and how they fit into the bussing structure
11. Learn as many keyboard shortcuts as you can
12. SAVE REGULARLY!!!

with delays, the timecode based plugin problem doesn't affect you Unless you are Syncd to the Host tempo and have a varying tempo. Then the plugin will ONLY get the First tempo in Sonar's tempo list.

Er.....

1. Screensets are great
2. Screensets are really useful
3. Screensets are a revelation
4. Screensets can be used for some OTB workflows
5. Screensets can be imported from other projects
6. Screensets will definitely increase your workspeed
7. Screensets can be locked so as not to remember changes
8. Screensets will change quicker if you disable your floppy controller, even if you have no floppy
9. Screensets can make coffee for you
10. Have I mentioned screensets?

travismc1

1.  Boost 11 should be used to catch stray transients, not so much to boost.

2.  Track Folders are awesome...

I got the impression that the OP wanted to be alerted to things about X1 that might be unobvious or unexpected for someone used to working with earlier versions of Sonar.

I've been using X1 for about 3 months.  I'd used it at a friends house, read this forum and thought I'd hit the ground running.

I wasn't patient, I developed a bad attitude and only after about 2 months did I finally understand why X1 was built the way it is.

I love X1 now, and eventually you will get to the point where you gripe about how drab the color scheme is - something so slight does affect you over time - and be pretty happy about the upgrade.   

Kev, :) I'll throw myself on the mercy of the forum for not being 100 percent sure what was in or not in prior to X1. ... Sorry guys, I went from Music Creator 2.0 to X1.